Intercolumniation

Standard intercolumniations

The standard intercolumniations are:

Pycnostyle

One and a half diameters

Systyle

Two diameters

Eustyle

Two and a quarter diameters (and three diameters between middle columns front and rear); considered by Vitruvius to be the best proportion.

Diastyle

Three diameters

Araeostyle

Four or more diameters, requiring a wooden architrave rather than one of stone

Araeosystyle

Alternating araeostyle and systyle

Vitruvius's definitions seem to apply only to examples with which he was acquainted in Rome, or to Greek temples described by authors he had studied. In the earlier Doric temples the intercolumniation is sometimes less than one diameter, and it increases gradually as the style developed; thus in the Parthenon it is 1⁠1/4⁠, in the Temple of Diana Propylaea at Eleusis, 1⁠1/4⁠; and in the portico at Delos, 2⁠1/2⁠. The intercolumniations of the columns of the Ionic Order are greater, averaging 2 diameters, but then the relative proportion of height to diameter in the column has to be taken into account, as also the width of the peristyle. Thus in the temple of Apollo Branchidae, where the columns are slender and over 10 diameters in height, the intercolumniation is 1⁠3/4⁠, notwithstanding its late date, and in the Temple of Apollo Smintheus in Asia Minor, in which the peristyle is pseudodipteral, or double width, the intercolumniation is just over 1⁠1/2⁠. Temples of the Corinthian Order follow the proportions of those of the Ionic Order.